Sarah left for B.A on the 28th and will be there for a week – then Patagonia (El Calafate and El Chalten). If you’re interested in traveling with her – find her on the Facebook : Tango Diva Group page on the Wall and connect!

Who would have thought that what began as an off-the-wall idea for enticing tourists to Napa during (what used to be) the slow season, would turn into a world renown two-month-long line up of fantastic food, wine, and art events– all to honor the humble mustard flower.

From January 31 through March 28, 2009 you’ll be able to find a wide array of bloomin’ festivities that everyone will enjoy: wine tasting, marathon running, fabulous photography exhibits, gourmet foods or perhaps just exploring Napa when the valley is carpeted by rich golden wild mustard.

Mustard Magic, the lavish grand opening event, will jump-start the season on Saturday, January 31, 7 pm, at The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena. You’ll be dazzled, amazed and entertained while wandering through the candlelit historic stone mansion, oohing and ahhing as the festival’s award winning artwork, (seeabove) Magique de la Moutarde by Melissa Baker and paintings by European masters magically come to life. This black-tie/Art Nouveau gala features sumptuous tastes of food and wine throughout, a visual arts exhibit, dancing, a silent and live auction guaranteed to generate a few bidding wars for some very unique food and wine experiences, ending with an incredible performance by some amazing trapeze artists.

Tickets are $125 in advance through January 9;
$150 in advance (after January 9);
$175 at the door.

Purchase Online

And That’s Just the Beginning:

Be sure and visit the Mustard Festival website for details on other exciting events such as the “Mustard, Mud & Music — A Calistoga Jazz Festival,” an awards night at Napa’s Black Stallion Winery honoring “world champion mustard-makers,” where you can taste and vote for your favorite Chef’s original mustard recipe as you rock out to California cowboy music or perhaps you’d rather taste mustards from around the world and shop for wine, arts and crafts, and local culinary and gourmet products at The Marketplace, held at the beautiful Robert Mondavi Winery, March 14-15.

I was just cleaning out my picture files from last year and came across this one.
Anyone have a better caption?
Happy New Year to all you Divas and hoping your wildest travel dreams come true in 2009.

Jendarling bags

lux bags are lined in lightweight silk dupioni in six color options ranging from sorbet hues like surf and orchid, to black.

lux and lux lite allow you to store up to five items, leave room for accessories at the bottom and include a small internal pocket for jewelry items.

Aprrox $160.00

The Textiles
Jendarling places a high emphasis on quality and craft and pursues a rich color palette while utilizing the finest and organic-friendly materials such as organic cotton twill and hemp blends, 100% cotton duck and twill, and the not so sound, but stylish 100% silk and leather.
As no two closets are alike, Jendarling’s goal is to offer a myriad of textiles available to everyone from the environmentalist to the fashionista (o). We feel that any cotton, regardless of its background is a much more sounder practice than the use of plastic.
Each bag is crafted in California, true to its roots. The Jendarling label starts the heat press stamp in Napa, and continues on to a small local leather manufacturer in Marin County, California. With a high emphasis on textile certification and fair labor, both the lux and lux lite lines are socially aware of its surroundings.

Jendarling bags are truly for those who take their idolized threads and environment seriously.

With World Vision, you can give a gift to honor someone special that helps a child or family in need. World Vision is an humanitarian organization that aims to tackle poverty and injustice by helping children and families worldwide. Here is a small sampling of the gifts you can give through World Vision:

• For $75, give a goat to a family in a place like Haiti or Kenya, which provides them with milk, cheese, yogurt and extra income from offspring and dairy.
• For $32, help with a child’s school fees, uniforms or supplies.
• For $50, provide medical care, food, vocational training, counseling, etc. to girls who have been subjected to sexual exploitation.
• For $50, provide $250 worth of food for a family when your gift is multiplied 5 times with government grants.
• For $100, give one share of a deep well that will help provide 2,800 gallons of safe water a day to as many as 300 people.

When you purchase a gift, World Vision will send a card to the person you have specified that describes the gift and its impact. Visit World Vision to donate and make a difference this holiday season. Gifts are tax-deductible.

The mission of Project Concern International is to “prevent disease, improve community health and promote sustainable development”. What better way to honor a loved one than by helping PCI achieve these goals?  PCI’s Gifts of Life program offers three categories for giving: Gifts of Health, Gifts of Hope, and Gifts of Nutrition. Within these categories are several options and gifts to choose from.

Through Gifts of Health, select from several possible donations including: help to ensure a safe delivery for a mother and her baby in Guatemala ($500); provide an entire community with clean water ($100); help an HIV patient receive proper treatment ($75); help tuberculosis patients get treatment to cure the disease ($25).

With Gifts of Hope, choose from gifts such as: sponsor a children’s soccer team ($150); train orphan caregivers in Ethiopia ($100); help women escape poverty with a microloan to start their own business ($50); provide a child in India with shelter from the streets ($20).

By giving Gifts of Nutrition, provide a child with school breakfasts for an entire year ($150); help a family in Nicaragua improve their health by providing them with a flock of hens ($50).

When a gift is purchased, an e-card will be sent to your recipient, another bonus because it’s more eco-friendly than a traditional card. Visit www.projectconcern.org for more information or to purchase a gift.

There will be no whining from the designated drivers if you have Golden Star’s White Jasmine Sparkling Tea on hand.

I first discovered this boutique beverage at last year’s Fancy Food Show and had chosen it as one of the year’s best new products. It’s taken a while, but it’s finally available at Whole Foods in San Francisco, L.A. and New York, or online.

Golden Star uses the finest organic ingredients to create their White Jasmine Sparkling
Tea, the world’s first sparkling floral tea. This unique beverage is crafted with a
secret blending of heirloom teas mixed with raw cane sugar, and then
fermented using intensely artisanal processes, resulting in a complex non-alcoholic
sparkling tea that can be sipped like champagne.

The annual Hollywood summer film dreck rollout is over.
There are tons of good films out there right now, magically
scheduled in time for your big holiday weekends and just
in time for Oscar consideration.

Slumdog Millionaire
The Wrestler
Milk
Quantum of Solace
Defiance
Frost/Nixon
Doubt
Revolutionary Road
Gran Torino
Australia
Changling
Yes Man
RocknRolla
Synecdoche, New York

Slumdog Millionaire
Absolutely, definitely see this one. Your Indian tour guide could never show you this side of the country. Brit director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Millions) tells the story of Jamal Malik, a “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” contestant (Dev Patel). Dev, btw, had only visited India once when he was ten. Through flashbacks we find out how a “slum dog” could possibly know the answers to each question and along the way learn his life story. There’s a great love story woven in. And do not leave before the credits, the cast throws in a wonderful surprise to leave you smiling.

The Wrestler
If you hate the holidays and love to wallow in bitterness this is the perfect xmas pic.
Someone involved in this film will definitely get an Oscar. The acting is amazing.
Mickey Rourke (Randy, the Ram, Robinson) basically plays himself, displaying his once marvelous physique, perfect to show us all the aches and pains of a wrestler past his prime. He develops an emotional relationship with cautious Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), whose spot on
portrayal of a stripper will convince you she’s been doing this her whole life. And the girl does the profession proud with her remarkable body. Anyway, Randy, the Ram is a real screw-up, trying to make things right with his estranged daughter & resurrect his career & love life with heart breaking results.

Milk
Why oh why didn’t they roll this one out way before the November elections. This film is a cautionary tale on what happens when history repeats itself. We are taken back to the 70s, meeting closeted Harvey Milk of NY. True to the times, he picks up a young stud in the subway and moves to San Francisco with him. Harvey transforms himself into a small businessman, community leader & eventually becomes elected the first openly gay supervisor. We see Harvey as a major player in the transformation of the Castro district into a gay mecca. His Castro Camera shop served as the staging grounds for the local gay rights movement, the biggest fight of the time being Prop 6, which would have banned gay people from teaching in public schools. Really ? ! ! Sound absurd ? Well it almost passed, and thirty years later we’re dealing with another threat to
human rights, Prop 8. Sean Penn as Harvey Milk is amazing, Josh Brolin is downright creepy in his transformation into Supervisor Dan White. Those old enough to remember will be amazed seeing their history played out in front of them.
Look for San Francisco’s Tom Ammiano with a line in a brief crowd scene.
It’s all so very sad and yet an inspiring true story of a remarkable man.

Quantum of Solace
This century’s Bond heartthrob, Daniel Craig, drives fast, shoots guns & kisses the girls, everything we’ve come to expect in the 007 franchise. The opening credits don’t disappoint with zippy retro animation. Okay, this film is pure fluff, but it is entertaining escapist fare all the way. Not that your asked, but from a feminist perspective I found this film even more disturbing than the original James Bond films where women only showed up on screen to be used and discarded. In this version of action reality, the lovely Olga Kurylenko, playing Camille, develops an equal comradeship with Mr Bond. The thing that really irked me was that the only woman who gets laid in this film is a secretary. Camille has it all, beauty, brains, incredible athletic skills and yet…… I’ll let you come to your own conclusions.
The great supporting cast includes Judi Dench as M and Giancarlo Giannini as Mathis. It must be so much fun to play evil.

Defiance
How strange to see our blue eyed James Bond playing the lead in this true story of a couple
of brothers who led a successful Nazi concentration camp escape and formed a
working movable village in the woods. This is one compelling film, not as depressing as the usual Jewish victim films. Here they actually get to kill some
Germans and live relatively free while on the run for four years.

Frost/Nixon
Leave it to Frank Langelia, who once upon a time played Count Dracula, to humanize Nixon. He really pulls it off.
Michael Sheen as David Frost is believable as the bit o fluff talk show host who gets the interview of the century and manages to pose an amazing zinger of a question to Nixon, a skilled political debater. Perhaps because of his age, Nixon felt the need to make amends to the country and remake his legacy. Compelling stuff.

Doubt
I hear that folks who saw the Broadway play don’t like this version as much. Having no such prejudice i was highly entertained & impressed with the acting
of Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius Beauvier & Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Father Brendan Flynn. You really get a feeling for the repressive Catholic school life of the early 60′s. The big pink elephant in the room is the suspicion that Father Flynn is a pedophile.
Doubt runs through the entire film and never leaves.

Revolutionary Road
Young newlywed’s minds will be blown away by this psychodrama of young married life in the 50s, questioning why we all buy into the love, marriage, baby, white picket fence thing. Absolutely relevant to life today. This film would have been a hard sell if it wasn’t for the lead actors, a time traveling Titanic reunion for Kate Winslet & Leonardo DiCaprio. Funny, emotional absorbing, even stunning, the
kind of mind trip that stays with you for days afterwards.

Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood does it again. As a bitter, recently widowed Korean War vet he literally growls through the opening scenes, showing his open disdain for the
invasion into his working class world a bunch of Hmong immigrants, gang bangers, and assorted young people who are not white. Clint, as Walt Kowalski, never stops spewing out
a steady stream of not PC insults and yet comes around to a true change of heart. He finds he has more in common with his Asian neighbors than his spoiled grown children. There’s a lot of drama along the way. You get a glimpse into a struggling immigrant family’s life, getting emotionally involved in their many obstacles to the American Dream. See this ! Someone’s getting an Oscar.

Australia
Almost three hours, including at least three false endings. There’s no way to figure out what the director had in mind or how he got this thing funded.
The endless cattle drive is a perfect time for a bathroom break. Make sure you see this in a theater with comfy seats, and then only if you’re jones-ing for a Hugh Jackman fix. You can see Nicole Kidman’s frozen forehead any ol time.

Changling
Another bleak, compelling, true story from the past. What the heck is all this gloom saying about our culture these days? I think it’s obvious.
Clint Eastwood directs pouty lipped & fashionable working single mom Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) as she devotes her life to the return of her kidnapped son. Fans of the current political corruption cases will enjoy the irony popping up all over the place in this tale of 1940s Los Angeles political machine corruption. If this wasn’t a true story you could never believe that
this happened. The poor mom’s son is finally returned to her, only problem is he isn’t her child. So does everyone say we’re sorry madam, we’ll keep looking for your son, oh noooooo. They try to convince Mrs Collins she must be mistaken, and when she persists they try to convince her she is crazy, going so far as to lock her up in the nut house along with several obviously intelligent, sane women who had the bad sense to cross some man in authority.
I swear this film is a metaphor for all the denial we put ourselves through to survive our dysfunctional times.

Yes Man
This film really didn’t need to be released this late in the year as even in a bad year it would not be up for Oscar consideration of any kind. But it fits the mindless entertainment bill to a T. Full disclosure, i can’t stand Jim Carrey’s over the top mugging, yet the director managed to somehow work his annoying talents into the plot. The plot ? Bored & withdrawn from the world after his wife left him, Carl Allen (Jim Carrey) is talked into attending a LA cult like “Yes” seminar led by an over the top charismatic leader (Terence Stamp). Carl is transformed, heeding the call to be 100% positive 100% literally. He is not allowed to say No to anything. Off course this leads to all sorts of silly, horrible and sometimes hilarious hi-jinx. Zooey Deschanel, who looks a bit too young for our aging lead, provides the obligatory romantic interest. Would it ruin it for you if i say there’s a happy ending?

RocknRolla
Guy Ritchie’s latest from his Benihana school of editing. He must be working out some not so hidden hostility toward Madonna, as there’s an endless parade of indistinguishable white guys with accents, shoot-em-ups, and pretty girls that lots of stuff happens to. Whatever.

Synecdoche, New York
Recommend this to someone you hate.

film review: Rachel Getting Married

Anne Hathaway shreds her good girl princess image

into tiny pieces portraying a gal with issues on a pass from rehab

to attend her sisters wedding in the sprawling family home in

suburban Connecticut.

We’ve all known someone a bit like her and perhaps we

all fear we have some of her in us. You know the type, the

sun and moon revolves around her. Even her sister’s wedding

is somehow all about her. She can hijack anyone’s special

moment by turning the attention back on herself. Oh sorry,

i’m digressing into a painful memory of a self centered reporter

i once hung out with. Ok, really, no, it’s because i’m bitter,

i’ve never once in my whole life been a bridesmaid, not once.

Oh right, this isn’t about me, so back to the film.

This film is a republican’s nightmare.

Imagine a hell consisting of one big long endless wedding party

with elements from a year’s worth of Berkeley weddings.

We’re talking diversity on crack with imaginary sparklers and fire crackers

and a band that never ever shuts up. The theme is Indian for some unexplained

reason, but then there’s the New Orleans style dance

troupe and the rapper and the jazz and the really white family marrying

into the really black family, but that doesn’t explain the asian couple and

again, what the heck’s with the Indian theme?

And can we talk camera work for a minute? Yes, it’s like watching someone’s

home video with the shaky, panning, editing in the camera look that’s so

popular these days. Just like broadcast television, the bean counters and the

executive producers have colluded to convince us that amateur videography and

poor quality video is completely acceptable. It’s so darn real. Art for the people.

Thankfully, none of those eye sucking zooms or cheesy effects buttons were pushed.

This is a great think piece on family dynamics and really completely

exhausting. In a good way.

I can’t wait for Extreme Rachel Wedding IV to be released on

Sony PlayStation.

If you’ve had enough of the Christmas Turkey and could never stand that cloyingly sweet ham to begin with then get yourself over to the CAV Wine Bar & Kitchen Boxing Day Bash. (That’s Friday, Dec. 26th for all you non-Brits.)

They’ll be serving lobster and pouring white Burgundies and other lobster friendly wines by the glass.
$30 pp

To make a reservation go to www.opentable.com or call (415) 437-1770

CAV Wine Bar & Kitchen

1666 Market Street (Franklin and Gough), San Francisco, CA 94102